


Medicine

by tnico



Series: Alpha!Sorceresses / Omega!Witchers abo au [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha Keira Metz, Alpha Triss Merigold, Alpha Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, F/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Omega Lambert, Other, as in that's right babes this here's an attempt to write straight (lol) up het abo, but only through reference, though no sex actually happens!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23465089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnico/pseuds/tnico
Summary: The building frisson in his body means heat’s coming up quick, so Lambert got his sign and his backpack and headed out to his cave like usual. The company on the way’s new, though.
Relationships: (referenced), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Lambert/Keira Metz
Series: Alpha!Sorceresses / Omega!Witchers abo au [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693453
Comments: 12
Kudos: 72
Collections: Witcher Kink Meme (Dreamwidth)





	Medicine

**Author's Note:**

> That's right! I am indeed attempting a het ABO au _entirely in earnest._
> 
> To be clear here! It's not so much that I have a burning passion for heteronormativity as I saw a prompt for alpha sorceresses/omega witchers on the kmeme, thought "Oh man, omega Lambert would just absolutely _loathe_ alpha Triss, wouldn't he", and then I was off.
> 
> So I wanted to take a crack at omega Lambert, and unfortunately if you rule out his fellow wolf lads as too familial to be viable shipping prospects as I do that narrows the playing field down to Keira (who I like and think would be good for him), Triss (who I have a mild distaste for, she knows what she did) and Aiden (which: uh. Bad news on that front, you guys.) So Keira it was!
> 
> As far as timelines go, take this as porting Lambert and Keira from Witcher 3 but presumably made younger to more closely match the geryenskier(?) from the show. Solely because I want to, and so I shall!
> 
> CW: Lambert being Very Rude at all times to all characters and also the entirety of Toussaint, and one paragraph that explicitly references an unfortunate (yet true! _you're welcome_ ) medical fact with the specific intent of out-grossing that Very Rude lad.

Lambert has been, at no point in his life, anyone's ideal for an omega. Sure, turning into a freaky mutant monster-killer didn't help on that front, though it _did_ help with the mouthiness. In that post-Trials, his mouthiness changed not-one-single-fucking-bit, only now it was significantly more challenging for those around him to kick the shit out of him for it. 

So he's not like Geralt, spending all his time pretending like he doesn't fucking moon over What Might Have Been every time his heat comes around and fooling absolutely no one. There's a lot of shit in his life that'd be different if he hadn't been sold off to Kaer Morhen like he was, but the omega thing? He figures it'd be pretty much the same. 

He knew he'd be a shitty omega since the day he first presented. It takes him significantly longer to realize that Keira, for all her poise and power and pheromones, is actually kind of shitty at being an alpha, too. 

* 

The building frisson in his body means heat's coming up quick, so Lambert got his sign and his backpack and headed out to his cave like usual. The company on the way's new, though. Keira's been chatting to him (well, at him) about something to do with human blood types. Which: the fact there was more than one type in the first place was news to him. So far as he's always known, human blood's pretty interchangeable. Red when wet, brown when dry, tastes like licking a copper coin, sometimes he feels like he can smell it a mile off when he can tell an army's passed through and sees smoke in the distance but that shit's gotta be in his head because he can't, not really. As usual, he totally lost whatever she was getting at when she started dropping into those annoying-pretentious Old Speech names for normal shit like bones and plants, like it somehow makes celandine more _medically applicable_ if you're calling it zir-ah-uh-ah- _whatever_ during. 

It's not like he didn't get drilled in alchemy like the rest of them (though the irony does not escape him that they waited to teach them the actual names and purposes and many, many, _many_ potentially-even- _more_ -shitty-and- _believe-him-that's-saying-something_ side-effects of all that the horrible shit they force-fed him during the Grasses _after_. "The Choice" _his ass._ ) It's not like he couldn't re-learn all those Old names he memorized and then abruptly forgot with prejudice as soon as he stopped being forced to. 

(Because what was the point of keeping them, really? The Old names for shit really only matter if you're farting around in courts and academies and palaces doing whatever-it-is-they-do like Keira (and sometimes Geralt, _the bastard)_ does when she's not around here.) 

Though given what he's heard from the both of them on all the knotgobbing that goes on up there, it does sound kind of preferable to just stay in the swamps and get for-real-gobbed on by the bloedzuigers. At least when the creatures down here spit venom at him they've got the moral integrity to sink to his level and be straight-forward about it. Kind of what he likes about Yennefer, actually. Which, wait, shit, no. Get it on record: Yennefer is the second coming of the Beast-Made-Borne from the backwash dregs of Chaos and is confined only through the grace of fuck-if-he-knows-probably-Lebioda's-sacrifice-or-something to her current bone prison. That's his going theory, anyway, and he doesn't like her for it in the slightest. 

Back on the subject: piling silks and slopping perfume onto a pile of shit don't make it not the same old shit. It just ups the chance someone will attempt to pull another one of those bullshit _oooooh-_ let's-all-pretend-it's-not-putting-a-fucking-hit-out-if-you-came-of-the-right-omega-regardless-of-the-fact-you-came-out-as-bloody-naked-and-screaming-as- _everyone-fucking-else_ -so-instead-we-get-to-call-it- _le-execution-a-la-lese-majeste_ which _ooh-la-la_ makes it all _la-dee-da_ and not just another damn ordered hit (he'll call it like he _sees_ it) for being a too-mouthy omega ( _again)._

Fucking _Toussaint._ So yeah, no, so long as they still got those wanted posters up in Beauclair he'll just keep sticking to his literal swamps. 

Point is: he could re-learn to Old names, if he wanted to. He even considered doing just that recently, but it feels (in that indefinable and instinctual way it sometimes does) like if he does, Keira will have won. Won _what_ , exactly, he can never be be assed to tell, but he's been dictating his personal life off the scoring system that this instinct demands since even before he presented, so like hell is he going to start handing out wins to every good-looking Alpha that smiles at him and acts like she's listening now. 

* 

As usual, she doesn't mind that he's only got half a clue what she's on about, seemingly happy to just have someone around she can rattle off the things she's got rattling around in her head to. Which, fair. Lambert goes on tears too, sometimes, and it's not like he's looking for some big answer or _bullshit out-your-ass magical solution_ (piss _off_ with those, _Merigold_ ) to the shit he goes off on. It's just that if he lets it out then it's out, and when it's out he can try to sort it out. 

Though, toss that on the pile for another reason Keira's kind of garbage for an alpha: she never tries to swoop in to demand he try shit that _of course_ he'd tried already (obviously, _Merigold)_ or talk over him with nonexistent know-how on his life because _didn't-you-know-that-alphas-know-everything-about-eeeeeverything._

She just lets him talk about his shit at her, same way he lets her talk about her shit at him. 

Granted, her shit is labyrinthine theories that only make sense to her and that dedicated passel of university milksops always sniffing at her heels. Meanwhile, his shit has the unfortunate tendency to devolve into yelling at the sky as a stand-in for yelling at all the people who are way too dead to ever learn to care and sure-as-shit never cared when he yelled at them while they were still alive, anyway. 

(Except for Aiden, but fuck, he'd always rather be yelling at the sky than he would with the staring into it with his heartbeat louder and louder in his ears and and thinking about how much he sometimes really fucking misses Aiden.) 

Which, generally that's the cue to either go find something to hunt or to go salvage some more breakable things to hurl off of the wall. 

The point here: it's not like he's ever made her stick around and listen. He never even _asked_ her to. And it tends to devolve into the yelling-at-the-sky thing whether anyone's actually around to hear him do it or not, so. 

So maybe it's unevenly balanced, but hey, he doesn't see anyone else lining up to spend an hour being followed around by a beautiful Alpha who wants your attention solely so she can beam at you and wave her hands in intricate and forever-varying ways while she talk at you about all those _fascinating variations_ of _fucking gross, Keira_ you can find on the insides of _septic cysts_ when he's just trying to live his gods-damn life and check on his gods-damn traps for his gods-damn dinner and he's _sorry, okay,_ is that what she wants to hear, he's _sorry_ that he said that and _yes okay_ she's _right like she's always right how many times does she want him to say it she's right_ he _didn't even mean it_ and _she's right_ fine _yes_ the only reason he says shit like that to her is because he's angry at the time with something that has nothing to do with her in the first place, _fine, she's right,_ _sure,_ he will already be fucking unable to eat this fucking squirrel tonight so he might as _well_ let it go, _fine,_ she can feel free to stop at _any time_ and _yes okay fine Keira he will work on it he promises_ how many times is she going to make him _say_ it because he absolutely will _so long as he never has to hear any more of her opinions_ on the _varieties and consistencies of pus or her saying the word "putrid" ever again._ And _no,_ he does _not_ need to see her _illustrations._

So if it's unevenly balanced he says it's weighted towards her, which is another mark on the list for her being _just the worst_ at being an alpha. 

* 

"Lambert, I couldn't help but notice-" 

Well, _finally_. He's already started sweating, so the slowly rising scent that accompanies pre-heat'll be unmistakable by this point. He's honestly been wondering why it's taken her so long to bring it up, but she's always actually been pretty polite about it, even as an alpha (which: hey, _Merigold_ , if you want to know about Geralt so bad, just _fucking_ go ask him _._ ) 

"--that your bag keeps clinking." 

Or-- not. Huh. He shrugged, shifting the bag and setting off another cascade of clinks. 

"Yeah. Gotta keep myself in good with the medicine." 

Keira tilted her head in question. "Medicine?" 

Lambert flipped his sign over. "Heat's coming up," he said, because fine, if she's gonna keep not asking or saying it, he _will._

And gods _damn_ it _,_ on immediate further thought, leaving him to be the one to bring it up is probably why she _hadn't_ , and now _he has_ , which means _she's won yet again_ , because he already flipped the sign. Fucking hell. How can she be both _the worst_ and nevertheless keep _winning_ over him? 

Keira's dark brows inched incrementally upwards per each line. Which, fair, it's not exactly elegantly done _:_ it's a chipped slat of wood with the words "KEEP OUT", burned into it which he then had to amend to add "ON PAIN OF DEATH", which he _then_ had to amend _further_ with "I AM IN HERE AND I WILL MURDER YOU", because _some_ knotheads will _never_ get the point if you don't spell _literally everything out for them_. But hey, it's been means-tested, and like hell is he going to waste another day and several blameless trees on trying to get that fucking Sigil of the Wolf to look right. 

Her eyes flicked back to his face. "I hadn't heard of a suppressant powerful enough for a witcher." It's the careful look, not curious, so no point in trying to push further with it. As reward for her growing skill in discerning when he begins straight-up bullshitting her about witcher lore, he goes through the laborious process of un-shouldering the always-unwieldy thing so she can take a look at his pell-mell assortment of whatever-bottles-Eskel-has-lying-around-that-time. The acrid scent of anything-goes alcohol has long leaked-through the shitty re-used corks, making the contents of even the smoked glass ones unmistakable. 

"All stocked up. See?" 

Keira stared down at the contents of the bag. She's got her city smile on, for some reason, the one that sticks to her face for the first few days whenever she drops by and she can turn on like a burner depending on which of her Lodge "sisters" portals in entirely uninvited (and fucking _rudely,_ because they could at least do it outside the gate and then _knock,_ and no, his own 'propensity for rudeness himself' does not make him a _hypocrite_ on this matter, it makes him a _qualified judge_ ). 

But oh _Lambert,_ it's a _sisterhood._ Yeah, _his ass._

For a _brilliant-genius-beautiful-magical-eligible-unmated-top-tier-alpha_ or whatever else those omegas in the cities have started calling her since that last time he'd been in the same one as Keira (and never caught a glimpse of her, obviously, it's not like they're moving in _similar circles_ ), it's honestly a wonder she's stayed alive this long. She's got major fucking trust issues if Lambert's ever seen them; that is, in the face of all applicable experience, she instead continually chooses to trust. 

"There's no food." 

He blinked, the sudden switch to fixed smile and obvious nature of her comment disrupting his side-running contemplation on what a sororicide shitshow that _sisterhoooood, Laaaambert_ is going to turn into when it all pops off, because _of course it will,_ because they're all alphas, and how many of them Geralt's probably going end up fucking in the fallout, _the bastard._

But he's always been quick on the comeback, so, "Fuck me, it's almost like people keep telling me you're a genius or something. Why would I want _food,_ Keira. This isn't a long-term stockpile or some shit. It's the sum total of what I've got to pound through to get to a three-day-blackout on an _empty_ stomach." 

Keira leaned back on her heels to look up at his face again, her pupils shifting minutely like she's trying to see something there. Which: it's not like there's ever anything there but his face, but it doesn't stop her from doing it _all the time_. "And... your intention is to spend your entire heat being... incredibly drunk in the open woods." 

"Hah, no. What, you think I'm some sort of idiot? I have a _cave_. And the point's to get all the way to blackout, I said. The drop doesn't matter for shit if you're already unconscious." 

She pursed her lips. "That doesn't sound in any way healthy, Lambert." 

"What? It's fine. Can't say the mutagens aren't good for some things. You oughtta see my liver." He shouldered the backpack back on, then tapped his fist against the lower base of his ribs, where the scarring pulls tight. "Last time I got gored real bad in the ribs I got a good look. Years of all this hard living and it's downright pristine." 

She stopped dead on her feet for a moment to eyeball him. "There are _much_ better ways to do that, too." 

"What, you think _I_ was so fucking thrilled with that chain of events? _Yeah, Keira_ , there's a _shit_ -load of better things I'd've rather been doing over getting gored real bad in the ribs. That's not a "do" thing, that's a "done to" thing. " 

Keira's mouth turned down into a tight moue of clear discontent. At least it's a much better look on her than it's ever been on Merigold. 

* 

"As far as... medicine," she said when a few more minutes has passed, and clear distaste for his choice of terms is obvious. It probably stings her pride as a _professional_ , which, hah, see, she might be _the worst_ but he can get wins out of this _too_. "Does Geralt do the same during... his?" she finished, like not saying the word out loud makes it in any way polite to ask him that question. Which, once again, let him make it clear to all the alpha sorceresses that keep fucking mooning around here: if she's that fucking interested in Geralt's heats she's _entirely_ capable of getting her answers from Geralt himself, _the bastard._

Lambert kept his words brusque and kicked up the pace. Can't waste daylight, because something-something-Papa-Vesemir. "Dunno. Never asked, never will. He doesn't load up on Eskel's goat piss, I know that. We all do our own thing." 

"Well, he's certainly handled for this round," she mused. "I'd suspect Yennefer of using alchemical assistance at this point in that embarrassingly unsubtle scent-marking competition she's having with his tag-along, but it _is_ Yennefer." 

Lambert snorted. Yeah, if there's any word for Yennefer beyond "bitch" (wiseacre, harridan, harpy, hoyden, snotty, snobby, smug stuck-up-shrill-shrewish-selfish-self-important-status-suckjobbing-he-could-do-this- _all-day-_ ) it's "potent". Meanwhile, Geralt's personal jester isn't much to look at, but he's apparently been holding his own long enough that if they haven't worked their _whatever_ out by this winter they're going to have to hose Geralt off from a distance like a skunked dog before they let him in. 

Keira's had to break out into a light trot to keep up. Since she'd apparently decided to keep right on following him into the depths of the wood, Lambert slowed. Terrain's rough enough, and that's when you have _shoes, Keira._ She noticed and nodded, and he didn't hesitate to immediately grimace and pointedly look away, because she never stops pointing shit like that out with the nodding and the smiling and the thank-yous and it gives him that itching urge that's his cue to find more things to hurl off the top of the wall because it's just the _worst._ Add it to the list. 

They slot back into their usual meandering pace, only this time the forest makes the meandering part of it actually required. Keira tapped a finger on her lower lip. "Which do you think he'll pick?" 

Lambert's answer is immediate, because this one's easy. "I've been shit-faced with Geralt often enough to be aggressively disinterested in anything to do with his sex life. Especially nowadays, and emphasis aggressive. The next time drunk Geralt tries to corner me for another monotone monologue of _suffering,_ _agony_ , _oh-woe-is-he,_ those two are giving him _feelings,_ I'm going to _bite_ him." 

Keira laughed like he was making a joke. He's really not, but she's got a nice laugh, in that it's not the _nicest_ laugh- a little too pitchy, just a pinch of grating. It's a reminder that she probably wasn't always living out there with the gorgeous looks and the perfect tits, sorceress and all. He's not even being (that) petty. 

He just- he likes it. She's always so unbelievable, and this makes her seem more real. 

Which, fuck, if he's apparently already contracted a case of the Geralts and is turning all _heat-sappy_ before it's even crested then it's coming on quicker than usual. Probably the company- she might not be as punched-in-the-face-by-a-very-aggressive-handful-of-gooseberries-and-then-beaten-repeatedly-about-the-head-with-a-bundle-of-lilacs-when-you're-down like Yennefer is on the scent front, but subtler or not, she's still smelling clean and slightly searing-sweet with notes of fruit ( _ugh,_ and now he's grading shit by its _notes of fruit_ , he _knew_ he shouldn't have let her talk him into that wine thing) like those fancy teas she likes so much and keeps on making him try. 

It's good, and he'd know: his taste in scents during his heats has always been _hilariously_ goddamn picky, given he's a witcher and thus generally has to fork over coin to get laid reliably. 

Not that he'd ever even _go_ to a whorehouse- _brothel_ , ugh, put Keira's incomprehensible tolerance for his mouthiness and yet similarly incomprehensible dislike for a handful of _specific_ crude terms on the list- not that he'd ever even go to a brothel for that. That shit's _personal_. But it'd be nice to at least be spared the nausea at how some alpha's scents go all cloying _way_ -too-sugary ( _Merigold)_ and sit heavy in his stomach and remind him that- 

Fuck, maybe he really _is_ getting a legitimate case of the Geralts. Well, he's got his medicine. He'll have handled it soon enough. 

* 

"And you do nothing else during but get drunk?" 

He snap-pointed to her in confirmation, not bothering clarify it further. There's also the matter of woozily waking up every few hours to down another bottle and piss in a bucket, punctuated by the occasional bouts of vomiting up the day's worth of Eskel's terrible-terribly-effective homebrew moonshine (that he has still yet to confirm or deny he _doesn't_ make solely from goat piss, so Lambert's keeping his suspicions) into the bucket for a riveting change of pace. He can confirm that shit stings going down _and_ coming up. He considered giving her the full tour explanation of bucket treatment if she wants to be so nosy, then decided against it. 

Not that he usually shies away from telling all and sundry all those coarse, messy facts involved in his general existence. He had even already weaponized the bucket process previously to great success in chasing Merigold away from him when she last came sniffing around here ( _of course_ for Geralt, _the bastard_.) He'd downright relished in sparing her no detail, narrating it as intimately and explicitly as possible, because Merigold might want to be Yennefer-level-manipulative on the Geralt front so _very_ badly (but just doesn't have enough of that Yennefer-level-cutthroat-bitch in her to actually close on any of it and so is resultantly just all-the-time _really fucking annoying_ ), but _oh_ , is it satisfying to watch her pretty face screw up all ugly when he's on a roll. What, he's a _working_ _witcher_. He's gotta take his fun where he can make it. 

But he can't risk it; the last time he'd tried something like that on Keira, she'd smiled serenely and took it as an excuse to launch into a string of stories about her own (horrible, horrifying) experiences with what she likes to call "medical complications". Apparently, Merigold's magic-healing-bullshit really _is_ as bullshit as he's always suspected, whereas the ones like Keira sometimes have to just roll up their sleeves and plunge (ugh) into it. So now he needs to never again give her an in on telling him any more nasty and _entirely-medically-accurate-he-went-and-checked_ anecdotes on how badly infections can go for humans ever again, because that shit is _way_ too foul for him and he is _regularly gobbed on by bloedzuigers._

"Grateful" isn't what he'd call his usual relation to his mutagens, but there are times in his life when Keira opens her mouth and then says something _heinous_ in a perfectly pleasant tone about shit like oh _Lambert_ , didn't you _know_ sometimes humans' tumors will grow _hair and teeth_ and not even _cursedly_ or _magically_ or because they're _anywhere near those humans' gods-damned scalps or mouths_ they apparently just _do that sometimes_ and oh _Lambert, it just so happens_ that she once found one of those _miniature_ _medical marvels_ while she was just, _you know_ , rooting around in _someone else's_ _brain_ while they were _still alive_ as one does, apparently, because _that's_ so fucking normal, so of _course_ she had to _bisect it_ and put it in one of her fucking _jars_ that she'll _bring next time to show him_ because it's _just so interesting, Lambert_ and then she up and _changes the subject_ like it's _nothing_ and she hadn't just fucking _spiritually marooned_ him eyes upturned and staring into the merciless face of the Black Sun ever-approaching to grapple with the truth that _apparently this whole time it's been staring right back_ because tumors can _grow teeth_ , what the _fuck_ , Keira. Those times? Those specific times? He's _real fucking grateful_ things worked out for him with his mutagens. 

Weaponizing the full force of the bucket process isn't anywhere _near_ the sort of samum-level shit she can pull out of nowhere, smiling sweetly at him all the while. He suspects, for not even remotely for the first time, that it's not anywhere near as innocent as she plays it and she in major part does it specifically to fuck with him. Though hell, he knows that look. She'll really bring it with her the next time. So now he's got to think of a way of getting out of having to say nice things about Keira's creepy teeth-tumor jar (what the _fuck_ ) before the next time she visits. Add it to the list. 

"Hmm," she said. 

* 

You just really can't hang around Keira for long without medicine coming up in some way or another. Which, get that on record, he's _not_ hanging around her. He's always here _first._ The only hanging around Lambert does in this situation is witcher-standard hanging around in the dessicated corpse of Kaer Morhen when he needs to make use of it. (Because not everyone has a fancy-ass _manor_ in _Toussaint_ like Geralt, _the bastard._ ) 

Speaking of, he really ought to check with Geralt if those wanted posters are still up, if only so he can finally make Keira shut up about showing him Beauclair "the right way", whatever _that_ fucking means. 

(Like he wasn't now more _deeply_ and _intimately_ acquainted with that fucking city than Keira's ever been because, _hah_ , that _fucking skinflint cheating lying_ _shitbladder_ marquis and his thickhead dumbass guards couldn't _la-dee-da-ooh-la-la_ their way outta the simple fact that while the Beauclair high-town might be a _metaphorical_ sewer, their _literal_ sewers will eventually always lead you out of that fucking city. 

So yeah, Keira, he has already _experienced the true Beauclair_ , and in his experience it goes right, left, left, down the ladder, second left, follow the water to where he'd snagged one of those massive-fuck-off-iron-balls they keep down there for _whatever reason_ ( _Boules de curage,_ what, he might not know that shit but he can still _listen,_ because oh _Lambert_ really can't you appreciate such an _admirable innovation in the area of sanitaaation_ , which _of course_ she had a hand in creating in with one of her fancy fucking university passel heel-sniffers ( _of course)_. 

Because that's one of her farting-about-her-fancy-fucking-university things she does when she's not here, he fucking _knows_ that. And yeah, he's also entirely aware, thanks so _fucking_ much, that it's not his lot in life to go around ever matching (up to) shit like that. Not that he'd want to. And even if he _did_ want to, not like he'll ever. Not like he would.) 

But hey, even an _ignorant-jumped-up-yokel-only-good-for-monsters-mutant_ or whatever else those omegas in the cities have started calling him since that last time he'd been in the same one as Keira can figure out how to make good use of a free massive-fuck-off-iron-ball if those ooh-la-la fucks are just gonna _leave it lying around_ down there. He can confirm that it'll scatter the marquis' tin-crown jobber guards like they're so many pins in an alley. And from there it's just right, first left, round the bend, introduce the grate to his _very_ best new friend, massive-fuck-off-iron-ball, (a brief but memorable partnership he still yet pines for at least once-per-week) and then you're finally _out_ of that shitty (literally) city, _le execute_ his trail-dust you overstuffed Toussaintois Toussaintwats. Fucking _hah._ Which yes, _of course_ he pre-prepped his bug-out route, Keira. Because Lambert might not _reshape cities from the inside_ like her fancy fucking friends but he at least learns his fucking lesson on the trust front, and no, they're not _issues,_ he's not the one with the trust issues, _she_ is, so Keira can quit turning that one back on him _any time now_. 

Ugh, _Beauclair._ Actually, Geralt can feel free to keep that fucking manor.) 

And if it seems like Keira drops by a lot when he's around, that's her business, isn't it. He's not going to hand her a win and actually check if she doesn't come by when he's not around, because she's an Alpha and she's a sorceress and Lambert knows the score on that one. He has in no way counted out that she's trying to pull a long game in the style of the Merigold Classic and all this cozying up to him is in the _incredibly_ _misguided_ hope it'll get her in good with Geralt, _the bastard_. 

So. Just for the record. _She's_ the one hanging around. 

Suffice to say, the point here: medicine. Lambert can't say he's learned much about it, from all Keira's talk, but by now he can at least say he sure-as-shit has learned that when she calls both her best and her worst stories "medical complications", she's absolutely fucking right: when it comes to Keira, things always gets _real_ complicated. 

So the point here's medicine. 

* 

"It's forward to ask, but I would like to know. Your companions-" 

"You mean the _whooooores,_ Keira?" He let the world drawl. 

Keira wrinkled her nose. "I mean your _companions,_ Lambert. If you're paying for their service, call them prostitutes, if you like, but not _whores._ I don't mind you being crude, but I won't hear you being cruel." 

Lambert, in an incredible showing of personal self-restraint if you ask him, refrained from blowing a raspberry because she always says that and _what is the difference_. She gets so _weird_ about some words. 

They're fully off the beaten path and on the path beat into his memory now. Keira, is, as ever, painfully unused to navigating any terrain harsher than those silken carpets that all the omegas in her cities are probably rolling out under her feet wherever she goes in the hopes that she'll notice and deign to court them, like he's seen them do with Yennefer. Which, good fucking luck to them on that front: he's pretty sure when Yennefer fucks them it involves her unhinging her jaw during so she can then devour them whole at the climax like she's a pale widow. That's his going theory and he's sticking to it so long as he keeps never seeing her take a repeat customer (except, _of course,_ for Geralt, _the bastard_.) Though he takes the status-suckjobber thing back, 'cuz there's status-striving-shysters like Yennefer and then there's those omega _status-suckjobbers_ like those ones he saw mincing around the last time he was in the same city as Keira. 

She's trying her best at it, which in the real world translates to her doing shit-awful. Lambert reached out to snag her by the back of her (low, _low_ cut, what, she puts it right out there, he can at least fucking look) dress before she can trip face-forward over a root. "This is why we wear shoes." 

She smiled at him, eyes bright and honey-colored and crinkling at the corners, and said "Never." It's a pretty smile. He wondered, sometimes, how much that changes when everything else about the sorceress's body does. He wondered, sometimes, if maybe they'd met before she got all beautiful and famous, if they'd met, maybe he could've. 

His own temperature's higher, and the brush of her cooler skin feels- feels. 

He swallowed. Fucking _heat_. 

"What about the _prostitutes_ , then," he forced out, and even though he corrected the word in manner that was _clearly_ mocking, she's smiling at him still, which means regardless of how obnoxiously he'd pitched that tone she's still _won, again_ , fuck _damnit._

"I've seen you get offers outside of paid services," which yeah, she's seen a few of those. Just because he's apparently doomed himself for a hard case of the Geralts in this run of pre-heat, given how moony he's been getting, doesn't mean he's actually got the terminal case like the man himself (from which relief is apparently only found through sheltering in dark corners and grunting aggressively at predators if approached). He gets along with people, mostly. 

Well, most people. 

Well, depending on the people. But he can pull a good enough act at it, at least, to generally get actually paid, as opposed to Geralt, who has yet to learn that the average fuck'll generally like you more if you offer them a _variety_ of syllables. 

But while Keira's ever-mounting parade of wannabe-courters is one of those status-uppers (that Yennefer apparently cultivates as a food source, presumably to harvest for the unspeakable dark energies with which she maintains the beast beyond puppeting the meat-suit) it's never those kinds of offers. There's just the ever-constant, ever-thirsty witcher-fuckers (which, the fuck do they mean with _exotic_ , he's been _from here_ for fucking longer than those panting, spotty-faced teenagers who tell him he's exotic have _existed_ ) and the knotheads who for some reason always think that if you're rude, you're also easy, and if you tell them to fuck off that means _they_ get the right to be rude, (which, no) and at that point he'd might as well be back in the cave with a pounding head-ache and a corpse at his feet to dump and a sign outside he should probably update ( _again_ ). 

So there's offers, yeah. 

It's just that, when you're a witcher it's always, always, _always_ a matter of proving yourself. 

Proving yourself _tame enough_ , proving that no, you aren't _feral-by-nature_ , that you're only an abomination when it's _convenient_ for them and so long as they never have to _see it_. And it's every time, with humans, because it's not like he stays in one place, so it's just everyone he ever meets he's got to be proving himself proving himself _always proving himself_ and then he gets to slog back to good ol' Kaer Morhen to just baste in all those fond childhood memories of Lambert Prove Yourself Or Go Die and once again face down Papa Vesemir so he can _prove himself some more_ just to _switch it up_. 

And then it's back on the grind to prove himself to the next and the next and the next paying fuck and do it all over again. 

So yeah, he gets offers, but maybe sometimes he just wants to get fucking knotted without _also_ having to keep up the chorus of _proving himself_ to be _safe_ and _nice_ and _proper_ enough to be fuckable to humans. The only thing you got to prove to a, _ugh_ , _fine_ , _proooostitute_ is that you're good for it, and at least that he doesn't have to fucking _smile_ for. 

Trying to put that personal of a shitshow into words had all the hallmarks of Lambert-this-will-definitely-end-up-with-you-yelling-at-the-sky, though, so instead of trying he goes with "Yeah, it's not so much I'm paying them to come as I'm paying them to _go._ " Hey, it isn't a _lie._

"And you've never considered going to a professional for times like this?" 

" _Shit_ , no. With a stranger? That's _personal._ " 

Keira's smile broadened. Which generally means he's said more than he's been trying to say, and as that usually preceded one of her wins, he attempted to push past it fast, 

"Anyway, you oughtta see the rates they try to put onto heat-stays when you're a witcher. You got these Churchers out there getting all toplofty about an honest paid-for suckjob being an _obscenity_ , hah, now _that's_ the true gods-damned obscenity-" 

"I agree." 

Lambert blinked. "Why the hell were you looking up brothel witcher-pricing? I don't know if you've noticed, but when I tell you that you oughtta see something, that usually means the sort of shit you like to put in your _jars."_

"No. I agree that it's personal, heat. You know, when we first met, I'd have never taken you for a romantic." 

Lambert scowled, because fuck, he's never thought of his inclination to spend it alone framed like _that_ and is entirely certain he disliked it, because he's not. But shit, if he objected, he'd look oversensitive about it. Which would then look incriminating, which means whether he accepts _or_ refutes it it still will look like he actually _is_ (which he's _not)_ which means she's probably _right about it like she's always right_ and has _won yet again,_ because scrabbling to try to find a way to win this has gone on long enough that his very silence now is incriminating, which is why _gods-fuck-it-all_ she's the _worst._

Well, whatever. He's almost to the cave, anyway. And it's entirely possible he won't even remember this conversation in the first place if he downs two bottles of goat-piss right away. She seemed to be expecting an answer, however, so he settled on gritting out "So fucking _what,_ " as mutinously as possible, which isn't going in the halls of his best total come-backs. Which, _whatever_ , it's not like he actually wanted to talk about it anyway. 

"So you could always spend it with me." 

He blinked at her. 

"--Fucking _what._ " 

Keira blinked right back, then blinked a few more times at whatever she thinks is going on with his face ( _fucking what??_ ), and then her own expression settled into something distinctly unimpressed. 

"Oh, _Lambert._ Really? I've been courting you for _months._ " 

Lambert trips face-forward over a root. 

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, boules de curage actually exist, and Paris still uses them to this day! And yes, there have been tumors removed from people's brains that were then discovered to be FULL OF TEETH. _I'm sorry._
> 
> However, if you want closure on sir-not-appearing-in-this-fic's own romantic complications, I can only offer you this:
> 
> Your love-triangle victor of choice: Is that a bitemark on your nose?  
> Geralt, deeply hungover:
> 
> if you liked my fic, please remember to leave kudos! 
> 
> (｡òᴗ-)7✧ i like seeing who liked my stuff.


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